Votapex - Release Notes
We're committed to creating an experience that is secure, reliable, and constantly evolving to meet the needs of your members.
We conduct regular development, maintenance, and upgrades to the platform to deliver Integration of User Feedback, Functionality Improvements, Security Enhancements, and Performance Optimisation.
We're not just building a voting portal; we're building a trusted platform that empowers members to participate conveniently, and Districts to regularly engage with their members in decision making. Thank you for joining us on this journey of continuous improvement and innovation.
#b6981fb: Aug 25, 2024 - Current Release
This release alters the behaviour of uploading DCM lists to ensure that dissolved clubs or renamed clubs do not remain in the roles database and removes the SQL Error that occurred when members existed in both Additional Members as well as the DCM List, improves the Votapex Provisioning Service to allow for provisioning of District Director and Administration Manager members, as well as provisioning within the new regions (Africa, Asia, US East Coast, Latin America) while improving provisioning in the existing regions.
#c290d3a: Jun 20, 2024
This release allows for text characters in District Names (Apologies to Founder's District) and introduces the start of a Portal Provisioning Tool to automate deployments of new voting portals.
#1d9d8f4: May 30, 2024
This release alters the behaviour of session timeouts - Standard users are logged off after 2 hours of inactivity, Vote Admins or Portal Admins are logged off after 28 days of inactivity.
#10299b7: May 17, 2024
This release alters the Quorum Display for Administrators to more clearly see if Quorum has been reached, and changes the public display to Progress of Total Votes. This also repairs the AutoOpen & AutoClose functionality which exhibited erratic behaviour during a voting event, causing a 10 minute delay to the event commencement.
#f8cc846: May 17, 2024
This release hides the votingurl option from Portal Configuration, along with folderprefix which was already hidden. This prevents Districts from inadvertedly making their Voting Portal inaccessible just before their event.
#fac718a: May 15, 2024
This release fixes the reclaim system to allow District Leaders to reclaim votes when they hold 2 votes presently to allow for a third vote.
#8988ce5: May 14, 2024
This release delivers a new "Votapex Provisioning Service" to configure and deliver a Votapex Portal for Districts wishing to onboard, in under 30 minutes. This also improves the performance of the behind the scenes "Votapex Housekeeping Service" which runs nightly to cleanup District Portals, and executes any application upgrades required to your portal.
#ac0fb8d: May 12, 2024
This release fixes the Question Editor's method of determining if a question is live, as the previous method incorrectly flagged all questions live once votes had been recorded.
#2fef4c3: May 9, 2024
This release provides User Interface improvements, and greater visibility of the Quorum Statistics being used.
#a3a2634: May 8, 2024
This release provides User Interface fixes as recommended by Scrutineers on the Scrutineers Report and Portal Admins when using Additional Members functionality.
#ad5809a: May 7, 2024
This release introduces management of Additional Members (to allow the addition and management of Credentials Chairs, Parliamentarians, Past District Governors and Directors, Scrutineers, and Technology Support) which aren't included in the District Council Member lists.
#5eb2249: May 7, 2024
This release fixes the Quorum Statistics engine, which incorrectly applied the quorum requirements between portal modes.
#b13f6c0: April 29, 2024
This release fixes where a members original vote has been reclaimed setting them to zero available votes, but also no means of reclaiming back when the reclaiming member has been unregistered or their original vote being unutilised.
#0eab0bc: April 29, 2024
This release updates handling of Role Status in accordance with changes from the TI Report of the District Council Member list.
#88fe878: April 28, 2024
This release allows Portal Administrators via the Members function to lodge and remove an apology on behalf of a member, and reverse a registration of a previously registered member.
#52a9859: April 20, 2024
This release allows members whom have registered an apology to cancel and re-register their votes
#2c4b56c: April 19, 2024
This release introduces Majority Threshold calculations to the Results and Scrutineers Summary, and new reports for Unpaid Members and Clubs
#e58255d: March 25, 2024
This release fixes the Reload Results button on the Scrutineer Summary
#c9baa7c: March 12, 2024
This release was a security fix where a non-logged in user may have been able to display pages within the portal that had no authorisation checks or queried data
#9ec2035: December 3, 2023
This release introduces usage metrics and telemetry for the Votapex Portal to enable our team to review portal performance and usage
#73062bf: September 29, 2023
This release improves the Database Performance when referencing QuorumStats or UnregisteredMembers
#c640b08: September 24, 2023
This release improved how Portal Config: AutoOpen behaves, with a Time & Date Picker introduced in the Portal Configuration options, and improved backend handling of AutoOpen to ensure appropriate triggering of the all important OpenVoting (Remove members & clubs not in good standing, Review & Update Member Votes and Open AutoOpen Questions)
#1f4fef3: September 20, 2023
This release opens reporting to Division Directors, with improved visibility of the state of their members and clubs, while introducing filters so they only see their Division.
#b8d575a: September 15, 2023
This release removes the hard-coded default questions, answers, and portal configuration, while introducing a new mechanism to apply updates to database functions, and triggering Removal of members & clubs not in good standing as a part of AutoOpen
#c64202c: August 26, 2023
This release sees improvements to the Document Management Download Script to handle new formats and bigger file sizes, and a minor bug fix to Question Editor
#5669b15: June 20, 2023
This release sees a number of improvements to the Question Editor including the ability to add, update, delete and reorder answers
#057a420: June 5, 2023
This release allows for multiple portals on the same subdomain, so that a District can have both a district council, and district executive committee portal if required
#7c82f29: June 2, 2023
This release introduces a new backend housekeeping tool, which runs nightly to double check the Portal Configuration and run updates to the database
#4b30335: May 13, 2023
Based on User Feedback, this release reduces the time waiting to reload after updates to questions, members and documents. This release also rebrands the voting portal from TDC Voting Portal to Votapex Platform.
#2fd011c: May 10, 2023
This release provides improved details if errors occur while loading reports, allows users to reclaim votes after a registration is completed, and reindex the Question Order automatically when using QuestionFlow.
#568710d: May 7, 2023
This release sees improvements in Document Management, enabling users to Edit and Replace Documents, and provides user guidance on what buttons do what in Document Management
#c827405: April 30, 2023
This release sees improvements to details provided to members during Registration to find contact points for Credentials Role, Phone and Email Address, and removes voter IP Address from Scrutineers Detail Reports.
#ea5e3f2: April 25, 2023
This release fixes issues in Reclaim Votes and the updateVoteCount SQL Functions
#1e5a74d: April 24, 2023 - Front-end Question Editor
This release sees the new Front-end Question Editor and Question Flow finally released from DEV Showcase to Production, meaning that backend database accounts are no longer required. This means that Questions and Answers can be created, edited and removed, and the Question Flow can be adjusted in meeting from the Votapex Platform. This release also fixes bugs from Document Management and Download, Backend Housekeeping, VoteCount Functions, and introduces a new DEC Voting Mode that allows usage of the portal to also serve voting for District Executive Committee meetings.
#cd959ac: April 18, 2023
This release includes a number of bug fixes for Document Management and Member Management.
#5ed8381: April 14, 2023
This release moves QuestionAdd from DEV Showcase to Production, adds Question Open, Close & Delete from QuestionFlow, In Development, a new Question Editor is available for showcase.
#4f1da45: April 12, 2023
This release includes fixes for the uploadDCM Process and Question Flow UI, and allows Portal Configuration to show the timezone of the current regional server.
#be0943f: April 11, 2023
This release introduces a "Default Members" for Districts to prepopulate their Members with regular staff officers, such as a District Parliamentarian. This release also includes fixes large document uploads, and introduces a new Question Maintenance tool which will help manage Questions posed to the District. In Development, a new Question Add is available for showcase.
#e280d2f: March 11, 2023 - Introducing Automated Deployment
This release signifies the migration to a code versioning repository, with a continuous deployment pipeline enabling rapid application development and deployment. This means that changes to the portals can be deployed quickly and automatically with minimal disruption
September 15, 2022 - Introducing Vote Reclaim for Presidents and VPEs
As per the changes announced by Toastmasters International, this version now allows for a President or VP Education to "reclaim" a vote from an alternate role within the same club, while still respecting the total entitlement limit. Members will now be offered to reclaim votes, where votes are available for the member to reclaim at the registration step.
April 15, 2022
This version introduces Documents, so that District Leaders can now upload and publish documents for their Council to review and consider before a Council Meeting.
August 15, 2021
Based on Member Feedback, this version introduces a Contested Question (for Contested Elections) which actively require members to select an option from a dropdown list, instead of relying upon the first option.
April 15, 2021
This version introduces Member Management from the Front End, allowing District Leaders to submit their District Council Member lists directly which will then populate the Members & Roles of their Council and assign votes accordingly, meaning less manual handling and errors.
August 15, 2020
This version introduces Apologies, so that members can now register an apology as well as register a vote, and these are presented in a new Apologies Report.
May 15, 2020
This version focuses on improving reporting accuracy - improved result percentages, improved accuracy of quorum, results now showing total of not submitted votes, and a new backend function to determine both total votes held and total vote entitlement, which updates a members total votes.
September 15, 2019 - The First Version
This first version provides registration of votes, voting on questions, results of voting, along with reports for Registered and Unregistered Votes.